Fabrication of nanostructured thermoelectric bismuth telluride thick films by electrochemical deposition

Bismuth telluride (Bi ₂Te ₃)-based solid solutions are state-of-the-art thermoelectric (TE) materials for cooling applications at room temperature with a high figure of merit ZT. Nanostructured TE bismuth telluride thick films have been fabricated by electrodeposition from a solution containing bismuth nitrate and tellurium dioxide in 1M nitric acid onto gold-sputtered aluminum substrates. A conventional three-electrode cell was used with a platinum sheet as the counter electrode and a saturated calomel electrode (SCE) as the reference electrode. Ethylene glycol (EG) was added to the electrolyte in order to increase the thickness of the deposited films, and its effect on the structure, morphology, and compositional stoichiometry of the deposited film was investigated. SEM and XRD were used for structural and compositional characterization. Bismuth telluride films with thicknesses of ca. 350 μm, a stoichiometric composition of Bi ₂Te ₃, and a hexagonal crystal structure were obtained. A microprobe technique was used to measure the lateral Seebeck coefficient in several samples. The free-standing films were shown to be of high homogeneity, where the abundance distribution of the Seebeck coefficient showed a half width of less than 1 μV K ^-1 and a high electrical conductivity of around 450 S cm ^-1 at room temperature.